[Blindmath] accessible math websites

Angie Matney arm4r at virginia.edu
Tue Mar 17 05:38:22 UTC 2009 

I have to agree. When I was teaching, I'd say that 99% of the time, my LaTeX documents came out exactly how I wanted them to. The other 1% of the time, I found it helpful to have someone glance at the output to verify that there were no glaring 
errors. 

Angie


On Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:14:30 -0400, Jared Wright wrote:

>There is the matter of being avle to verify the compiled LaTeX came out 
>how you wanted it. It's still something I get snagged on from time to 
>time if I'm really using unfamiliar or unorthidox LaTeX, and it is an 
>obstacle one will have to be aware of, especially if one's output is to 
>be digested by many others.

>Jared

>On 3/16/2009 7:49 AM, P. R. Stanley wrote:
>> How is it an exageration?
>> Can't you read text files? LaTeX source is pure text. You specify 
>> everything in text. My goodness, you've everything served up to you on 
>> a plate here. What more do you want, someone to do the chewing for you 
>> as well? *smile*
>> At 11:14 16/03/2009, you wrote:
>>> Of course, 100% accessible is probably a slight exaggeration, but I 
>>> certainly don't know of any equivalent notation systems that provide 
>>> the level of access for the blind that LaTeX does. Yes, you may need 
>>> sighted assistance to confirm the way LaTeX compiled at some point, 
>>> but don't you need sighted asistance to tell you the WYSYWYG editor 
>>> you're using did what you want? If you know of some way of editing 
>>> documents without vision that allows you to check all potential 
>>> facets of a document for correctness without any sort of sighted 
>>> confirmation, lead me to it! *smile*
>>>
>>> Jared
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3/16/2009 6:38 AM, Michael Whapples wrote:
>>>> "LaTeX is the only 100% accessible typesetting tool for the blind"
>>>> Really? I feel that needs questioning from both directions. I am 
>>>> sure there probably are other tools just as accessible as LaTeX but 
>>>> LaTeX is by far the most popular one which is useable. The other 
>>>> side is whether LaTeX is really 100% accessible, well the source 
>>>> code might be but the compiled document isn't. I remember when I 
>>>> wanted to achieve a very specific formatting I found it hard to get 
>>>> an output where I could independently confirm the output was 
>>>> actually formatted as I needed. As I remember I had to resort to 
>>>> asking a sighted person to check the formatting for me and it took a 
>>>> few attempts at the source code to actually get exactly what I 
>>>> needed. May be these cases are rare, but so long as a single case 
>>>> exists then a 100% accessibility claim is an exageration.
>>>>
>>>> Michael Whapples
>>>> On 16/03/09 06:34, P. R. Stanley wrote:
>>>>> I wasn't refering to you personally. It was you as in general.
>>>>> as I have already explained, wysewyg was invented to serve people 
>>>>> like you i.e. the sighted. LaTeX by some fortunate accident 
>>>>> happened to be just the thing we blind folks need in order to 
>>>>> ensure that the document looks as presentable as possible.
>>>>> Difficult or not LaTeX is the only 100% accessible typesetting tool 
>>>>> for the blind and you cannot and will not be able to change and I'm 
>>>>> not going to sit quietly while some half baked idea gets promoted 
>>>>> solely as to make money for a handful of opportunists!
>>>>> and before you get excited, no, I am not alluding to you.
>>>>> Paul
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> At 05:33 16/03/2009, you wrote:
>>>>>> FYI: I know TeX reasonably well. I wrote my thesis in it and many 
>>>>>> papers
>>>>>> in it, but I don't use it anymore (mostly) because I hate the write,
>>>>>> "compile", fix, "compile", fix, etc., loop that WYSIWYG 
>>>>>> eliminates. I do
>>>>>> advocate that people going into math or physics and a few other 
>>>>>> sciences
>>>>>> learn it because many of their colleagues will use it and you will 
>>>>>> see it
>>>>>> and need to correspond with them using it. Knowing it doesn't mean 
>>>>>> using it
>>>>>> though.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The point about actuarial notation is that it is not as 
>>>>>> straightforward in
>>>>>> TeX as a fraction or superscript is. As you can see, the "angle" 
>>>>>> part is
>>>>>> split among the overline and the |, and those constructs break 
>>>>>> apart the
>>>>>> operands in a semantically unnatural way, making comprehension 
>>>>>> harder. If
>>>>>> one were using real TeX, you'd write a macro to do this and it 
>>>>>> would be more
>>>>>> understandable, but the TeX variant used by Wikipedia (texvc) and 
>>>>>> most other
>>>>>> web-oriented systems is not extensible and only support a very 
>>>>>> limited
>>>>>> subset of TeX.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Neil Soiffer
>>>>>> Senior Scientist
>>>>>> Design Science, Inc.
>>>>>> www.dessci.com
>>>>>> ~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, WebEQ, 
>>>>>> Equation
>>>>>> Editor ~
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 6:38 PM, P. R. Stanley 
>>>>>> <prstanley at ntlworld.com>wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> > I'm sorry, Neil, what is the point you're making? You may not 
>>>>>> understand it
>>>>>> > straightaway but with a little bit of work and patience you can 
>>>>>> get to know
>>>>>> > the system. The benenfits of LaTeX which have been highlighted 
>>>>>> on this list
>>>>>> > on many occasions surely must make it worth the effort.
>>>>>> > Cheers
>>>>>> > Paul
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > At 00:31 16/03/2009, you wrote:
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >> If you are willing to deal with TeX, take a look at Wikipedia. 
>>>>>> The images
>>>>>> >> use TeX as the alt text. Unfortunately, TeX is pretty cryptic for
>>>>>> >> actuarial
>>>>>> >> notations. For example, "a angle n i" is represented as
>>>>>> >> "a_{\overline{n|}i}" Take a look at
>>>>>> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuarial_notation
>>>>>> >> and see if it is understandable.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> For more basic concepts (such as Algebra I and II), there are 
>>>>>> sites such
>>>>>> >> as
>>>>>> >> www.onemathematicalcat.org that use MathML and are accessible via
>>>>>> >> MathPlayer
>>>>>> >> with JAWS.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Neil Soiffer
>>>>>> >> Senior Scientist
>>>>>> >> Design Science, Inc.
>>>>>> >> www.dessci.com
>>>>>> >> ~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, WebEQ, 
>>>>>> Equation
>>>>>> >> Editor ~
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 1:39 PM, <sarah.jevnikar at utoronto.ca> 
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> > Hi all,
>>>>>> >> > Every so often, I find my math text inadequately explains a 
>>>>>> topic, and
>>>>>> >> so I
>>>>>> >> > wish to look it up online. However I find many math websites 
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> >> equations
>>>>>> >> > as images that JAWS won't read. Are there any sites you know 
>>>>>> of which
>>>>>> >> > explain mathematical concepts that are JAWS-friendly?
>>>>>> >> > Thank you for your help,
>>>>>> >> > Sarah Jevnikar
>>>>>> >> >
>>>>>> >> >
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>>>>>> >> >
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
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>>
>>
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